Okay, 50 years from now is hard to predict. We might have simple sustainable fusion power and nanotechnology. There I mean - fusion power stations, especially if you can have small two story house or smaller ones like the Polywell, that provide almost unlimited power from a few kgs of easily sourced materials. And controllable nanotechnology with self replicating nanobes or something as game changing as that - not just engineered nanostructures which we already have of course.
So, if you think that's in our near future, then things are so radically altered it's hard to even imagine what our priorities would be. All our climate problems on Earth should be easy to fix if we have that technology - no need to create CO2, as we have unlimited clean power, and easy to remove it from the atmosphere using nanotechnology and unlimited power - though probably with many new problems of their own.
Also 50 years from now is enough time so there's a chance we will have found life on Mars already - either present day or past life - after all that's the thing that the scientists are most interested in finding - so - what if we do find it - what happens after that? So - that's a big if, and for instance - some say that we should keep Mars off limit for humans if interesting life is found there. Because the benefits of a planet with interestingly different life could be so great, it's like having an exoplanet in our own solar system, which otherwise would need a voyage of light years - and one, what's more, with a shared past with Earth.
50 years from now is far enough into the future so that we might possibly have had a chance to do a reasonably thorough biological exploration of Mars - if we go all out to do it properly - send hundreds of rovers there and explore all parts of Mars - especially if we do it from orbit around Mars, via telerobotics, likely to be orders of magnitude faster than exploring from the Earth.
On the other hand 40 years ago they thought that by now we'd have had the chance to do a thorough biological exploration of Mars - but we have yet to send our first biological expedition to Mars after Viking (Curiosity can't detect life, unless very obvious, just organics).
Also 40 years ago they thought we'd have nuclear fusion by now. So it's also possible that 50 years from now we still haven't made really significant progress in either of those fields. But we might have.
When you say "do we colonize X or Y" - the underlying assumption behind your question is that we should colonize space. But should we?
Though I love the idea of space colonies in science fiction, I'm not entirely sure we should do it in reality.
First we have to be much more peaceful than we are today. Make interplanetary spaceflight easy and cheap - and that means that every country has technology better than the US has today - military technology also - and - it only takes one crazy person with a spaceship to destroy an entire colony.
Space habitats are tremendously vulnerable with the 10 tons per square meter outwards pressure on the thin skins of the spaceships and habitats.
Do you want N. Korea to be able to colonize Mars and the asteroids? Or whoever it is you think is currently a threat to world peace? If not, what's going to stop them?
Why the US and not N. Korea? Will you make it an international law that only citizens of "good" countries can go to space? If so who decides?
Then, if you are uncomfortable about any country in the world doing it, you should be uncomfortable about the US doing it also - because whoever you send there may not stay aligned to the beliefs and ideas they had when they first set off to explore.
Whoever settles, there may be immigrants from other cultures, and importing of ideas from other cultures. Then if it succeeds, there may be children born who never saw Earth who may have different ideas from their parents. Influenced by their unusual surroundings, they, and the original colonists also, may develop their own ideologies, perhaps based on ideas that we back on Earth find strange and hard to accept.
Then as spaceships get as easy to build as airliners are now, any country will be able to send astronauts anywhere in the solar system. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the situation already 50 years from now.
We've made a good start on peaceful exploration - with the Outer Space Treaty which prohibits weapons of mass destruction in space or claiming territories in space. But it's not too clear how that would transition to peaceful settlement in space.
Then - once you start colonizing space - where will it stop? What's to stop us colonizing the entire galaxy?
Space enthusiasts put that as a big plus, also many sci. fi. writers, and I used to think so too. But not so sure now.
We worry that there might be ETs out there who want to destroy the Earth. Well I think that's extremely unlikely because it would be a big coincidence that they happen to arise at just the same time we do, they should have been here for millions of years already. So if they wanted to destroy or take over the Earth they should have done that millions of years ago.
Don't want to go into that in detail, just to say, whether that's right or not, I think there's a risk that humans could become nuisancy ETs for the rest of the galaxy .
If we expand into the galaxy, somehow without destroying ourselves - but still keep our current basic attitudes - we could destroy other planets with ETs on them. Just because they might be far advanced on us as civilizations, doesn't mean they have to be able to defend themselves from us. They might be creatures without technology in our sense, and without any way to fight back, or to protect themselves from our machines or from our microbes.
Because, I don't think technological capability equates to maturity or wisdom or intelligence. Especially when you think of ETs who might e.g. evolve in sub surface oceans, or dolphin or parrot like, or whatever - of course astonishingly unlikely that they will be hairless primates with ears, nose, eyes, and five fingers like ourselves. May be many ETs highly advanced in other ways, perhaps civilizations that have lasted for millions of years - yet totally vulnerable to our technology or our biology.
I think there might be a way forward to avoid that, but have asked the question many times and not yet heard a good answer. Do you know of a way we can colonize the galaxy peacefully without causing problems to other ETs? Where it's not us our or children or our grandchildern that would be the nuisance - but our descendants a thousand times removed? Or not even them, but self reproducing biological entities or machines that they create?
And without causing problems to ourselves also as our descendants return to Earth maybe with warlike tendencies - or worse than humans, self replicating machines, or biological entities or hybrids that they created? How likely is that? Might it be that other galaxies in our universe have already fallen prey to such things? Or can it never happen, if so why not?
It sounds like science fiction, easily to dismiss for that reason, but of course space colonization itself is science fiction at present also. We are looking at a science fiction future and if space colonies happen - then other scenarios also might arise that have so far only been imagined in science fiction stories, especially if based on hard science, and maths, as self replicating "Von Neumann machines" certainly are, we may be only a decade or two away from creating the first totally independent self replicating machine using 3D printers to create its own components maybe even eventually its computer chips, from reasonably simple raw materials.
If we start colonizing the solar system not sure there is much to stop us colonizing the galaxy - even just step by step via Ooort clouds, in a few tens or hundreds of million years.
If so what will restrain us and make sure we are peaceful and a good influence on the galaxy, rather than barbarians that will destroy civilizations, and also destroy the more peaceful of our own human fellow colonizers? How can we make sure we follow the peaceful beneficial route here - and not just ourselves but all our descendants? Or make sure that we, and other ETs in our galaxy, are not vulnerable to those descendants, entities or machines who might go rogue?
And that could happen on Earth and in our solar system first, if it's going to happen.
I think colonization and exploration could be a good thing - but needs to be done carefully and well, with foresight. After all we've made so many mistakes on the Earth - how can we stop ourselves from making worse mistakes in Space?
So far we have proceeded with some care and respect with Mars, and I hope that continues, even more so. With the right attitude we can find the right way ahead, but I don't think it is an easy and obvious one. The only thought I have to offer is - that though it seems frustrating, we should go reasonably slowly.
And the Moon is the best slow first step I think - that or space colonies, and not to rush things. We aren't going to go extinct in the next few hundred million years through natural causes, highly unlikely. Only through our own action. And one way we might destroy ourselves is through warfare in space and colonists destroying each other and the Earth.
So - though it's great to imagine it, I don't think we need to rush forward into that future of the solar system full of colonists until we begin to have some good answers to those questions.
One way to proceed reasonably safely is to explore rather than colonize as your main objective, rather like Star Trek with their non interference prime directive.
Nowhere in the solar system is anywhere as good for humans as Earth anyway. And if we explore space rather than colonize, then - we develop the technology we need if we do ever have to escape Earth - but without the issues likely to develop if whole countries grow up in space, millions, eventually billions of people living in space with space technology.
That way also we learn a huge amount more about our solar system - and maybe also learn things we need to help us back on Earth. Things like mining for materials for Earth, solar panels to beam power back here. Space settlement happening slowly and naturally as a result.
So that's another reason to settle near to Earth - this is the place we will be building the settlements for. So - probably better to build solar panels for Earth somewhere near to Earth rather than in Mars orbits or Jupiter's moons. Not necessarily - the delta v from Deimos to Earth is less than you'd think so might have some mining on Deimos also for instance - but to have that as the focus, to help Earth.
Then, small settlements to other places in the solar system for close up exploration via telerobotics..
That plus tourists plus supporting science research stations like Antarctica stations. I think that's the best focus for future human space activities, rather than to focus on space colonization as the reason for going there. For both practical reasons (there is nowhere in space worth spending billions to get humans to colonize it when you could reverse desertification and build greenhouses in deserts for more colonists, for millions) - and for these other forward looking human factors reasons.
That way I think we have a chance of peaceful development of space, and maybe by the time we have technology to colonize the galaxy, we also have the wisdom to use it responsibly and not be an nuisance to the galaxy, or destroy ourselves, or both in the process.
What the solution to the conundrum might be I don't now, but we'll have decades, and more likely hopefully some centuries to work it though and decide what to do about whether to colonize the galaxy and how to make sure we can do it safely, or whether we should explore only, and restrict colonization e.g. to our solar system.
So my answer to your question is - depends on what is most useful for Earth - and also what is most beneficial for exploring our solar system and finding out about things without interfering with the balance of things until we understand how they work. As I understand it, then the Moon seems best of the two, but there also most likely an exploration base rather than a colonization attempt - and to think of exploration, mining, tourism etc as the motivation for it, and focus on how we can help the Earth also - and take it from there, how it develops with those as the main motives.
Also, to keep peaceful exploration of space as our primary aim long into the future. That's something which has worked well for the last several decades, is something which all countries can agree on and makes it easy to collaborate in space without conflict except friendly rivalry - who can find the most interesting things most quickly - and has great potential, I think to benefit humanity also.
So, if you think that's in our near future, then things are so radically altered it's hard to even imagine what our priorities would be. All our climate problems on Earth should be easy to fix if we have that technology - no need to create CO2, as we have unlimited clean power, and easy to remove it from the atmosphere using nanotechnology and unlimited power - though probably with many new problems of their own.
Also 50 years from now is enough time so there's a chance we will have found life on Mars already - either present day or past life - after all that's the thing that the scientists are most interested in finding - so - what if we do find it - what happens after that? So - that's a big if, and for instance - some say that we should keep Mars off limit for humans if interesting life is found there. Because the benefits of a planet with interestingly different life could be so great, it's like having an exoplanet in our own solar system, which otherwise would need a voyage of light years - and one, what's more, with a shared past with Earth.
50 years from now is far enough into the future so that we might possibly have had a chance to do a reasonably thorough biological exploration of Mars - if we go all out to do it properly - send hundreds of rovers there and explore all parts of Mars - especially if we do it from orbit around Mars, via telerobotics, likely to be orders of magnitude faster than exploring from the Earth.
On the other hand 40 years ago they thought that by now we'd have had the chance to do a thorough biological exploration of Mars - but we have yet to send our first biological expedition to Mars after Viking (Curiosity can't detect life, unless very obvious, just organics).
Also 40 years ago they thought we'd have nuclear fusion by now. So it's also possible that 50 years from now we still haven't made really significant progress in either of those fields. But we might have.
IS IT GOOD TO COLONIZE ANYWAY?
When you say "do we colonize X or Y" - the underlying assumption behind your question is that we should colonize space. But should we?
Though I love the idea of space colonies in science fiction, I'm not entirely sure we should do it in reality.
First we have to be much more peaceful than we are today. Make interplanetary spaceflight easy and cheap - and that means that every country has technology better than the US has today - military technology also - and - it only takes one crazy person with a spaceship to destroy an entire colony.
Space habitats are tremendously vulnerable with the 10 tons per square meter outwards pressure on the thin skins of the spaceships and habitats.
Do you want N. Korea to be able to colonize Mars and the asteroids? Or whoever it is you think is currently a threat to world peace? If not, what's going to stop them?
Why the US and not N. Korea? Will you make it an international law that only citizens of "good" countries can go to space? If so who decides?
Then, if you are uncomfortable about any country in the world doing it, you should be uncomfortable about the US doing it also - because whoever you send there may not stay aligned to the beliefs and ideas they had when they first set off to explore.
Whoever settles, there may be immigrants from other cultures, and importing of ideas from other cultures. Then if it succeeds, there may be children born who never saw Earth who may have different ideas from their parents. Influenced by their unusual surroundings, they, and the original colonists also, may develop their own ideologies, perhaps based on ideas that we back on Earth find strange and hard to accept.
Then as spaceships get as easy to build as airliners are now, any country will be able to send astronauts anywhere in the solar system. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the situation already 50 years from now.
We've made a good start on peaceful exploration - with the Outer Space Treaty which prohibits weapons of mass destruction in space or claiming territories in space. But it's not too clear how that would transition to peaceful settlement in space.
COLONIZING SPACE LEADING TO COLONIZING THE GALAXY
Then - once you start colonizing space - where will it stop? What's to stop us colonizing the entire galaxy?
Space enthusiasts put that as a big plus, also many sci. fi. writers, and I used to think so too. But not so sure now.
We worry that there might be ETs out there who want to destroy the Earth. Well I think that's extremely unlikely because it would be a big coincidence that they happen to arise at just the same time we do, they should have been here for millions of years already. So if they wanted to destroy or take over the Earth they should have done that millions of years ago.
Don't want to go into that in detail, just to say, whether that's right or not, I think there's a risk that humans could become nuisancy ETs for the rest of the galaxy .
If we expand into the galaxy, somehow without destroying ourselves - but still keep our current basic attitudes - we could destroy other planets with ETs on them. Just because they might be far advanced on us as civilizations, doesn't mean they have to be able to defend themselves from us. They might be creatures without technology in our sense, and without any way to fight back, or to protect themselves from our machines or from our microbes.
Because, I don't think technological capability equates to maturity or wisdom or intelligence. Especially when you think of ETs who might e.g. evolve in sub surface oceans, or dolphin or parrot like, or whatever - of course astonishingly unlikely that they will be hairless primates with ears, nose, eyes, and five fingers like ourselves. May be many ETs highly advanced in other ways, perhaps civilizations that have lasted for millions of years - yet totally vulnerable to our technology or our biology.
I think there might be a way forward to avoid that, but have asked the question many times and not yet heard a good answer. Do you know of a way we can colonize the galaxy peacefully without causing problems to other ETs? Where it's not us our or children or our grandchildern that would be the nuisance - but our descendants a thousand times removed? Or not even them, but self reproducing biological entities or machines that they create?
And without causing problems to ourselves also as our descendants return to Earth maybe with warlike tendencies - or worse than humans, self replicating machines, or biological entities or hybrids that they created? How likely is that? Might it be that other galaxies in our universe have already fallen prey to such things? Or can it never happen, if so why not?
It sounds like science fiction, easily to dismiss for that reason, but of course space colonization itself is science fiction at present also. We are looking at a science fiction future and if space colonies happen - then other scenarios also might arise that have so far only been imagined in science fiction stories, especially if based on hard science, and maths, as self replicating "Von Neumann machines" certainly are, we may be only a decade or two away from creating the first totally independent self replicating machine using 3D printers to create its own components maybe even eventually its computer chips, from reasonably simple raw materials.
If we start colonizing the solar system not sure there is much to stop us colonizing the galaxy - even just step by step via Ooort clouds, in a few tens or hundreds of million years.
If so what will restrain us and make sure we are peaceful and a good influence on the galaxy, rather than barbarians that will destroy civilizations, and also destroy the more peaceful of our own human fellow colonizers? How can we make sure we follow the peaceful beneficial route here - and not just ourselves but all our descendants? Or make sure that we, and other ETs in our galaxy, are not vulnerable to those descendants, entities or machines who might go rogue?
And that could happen on Earth and in our solar system first, if it's going to happen.
CAN WE MAKE COLONIZATION AND EXPLORATION OF SPACE A GOOD THING?
I think colonization and exploration could be a good thing - but needs to be done carefully and well, with foresight. After all we've made so many mistakes on the Earth - how can we stop ourselves from making worse mistakes in Space?
So far we have proceeded with some care and respect with Mars, and I hope that continues, even more so. With the right attitude we can find the right way ahead, but I don't think it is an easy and obvious one. The only thought I have to offer is - that though it seems frustrating, we should go reasonably slowly.
And the Moon is the best slow first step I think - that or space colonies, and not to rush things. We aren't going to go extinct in the next few hundred million years through natural causes, highly unlikely. Only through our own action. And one way we might destroy ourselves is through warfare in space and colonists destroying each other and the Earth.
So - though it's great to imagine it, I don't think we need to rush forward into that future of the solar system full of colonists until we begin to have some good answers to those questions.
EXPLORATION RATHER THAN COLONIZATION LEAD SETTLEMENT
One way to proceed reasonably safely is to explore rather than colonize as your main objective, rather like Star Trek with their non interference prime directive.
Nowhere in the solar system is anywhere as good for humans as Earth anyway. And if we explore space rather than colonize, then - we develop the technology we need if we do ever have to escape Earth - but without the issues likely to develop if whole countries grow up in space, millions, eventually billions of people living in space with space technology.
That way also we learn a huge amount more about our solar system - and maybe also learn things we need to help us back on Earth. Things like mining for materials for Earth, solar panels to beam power back here. Space settlement happening slowly and naturally as a result.
So that's another reason to settle near to Earth - this is the place we will be building the settlements for. So - probably better to build solar panels for Earth somewhere near to Earth rather than in Mars orbits or Jupiter's moons. Not necessarily - the delta v from Deimos to Earth is less than you'd think so might have some mining on Deimos also for instance - but to have that as the focus, to help Earth.
Then, small settlements to other places in the solar system for close up exploration via telerobotics..
That plus tourists plus supporting science research stations like Antarctica stations. I think that's the best focus for future human space activities, rather than to focus on space colonization as the reason for going there. For both practical reasons (there is nowhere in space worth spending billions to get humans to colonize it when you could reverse desertification and build greenhouses in deserts for more colonists, for millions) - and for these other forward looking human factors reasons.
That way I think we have a chance of peaceful development of space, and maybe by the time we have technology to colonize the galaxy, we also have the wisdom to use it responsibly and not be an nuisance to the galaxy, or destroy ourselves, or both in the process.
What the solution to the conundrum might be I don't now, but we'll have decades, and more likely hopefully some centuries to work it though and decide what to do about whether to colonize the galaxy and how to make sure we can do it safely, or whether we should explore only, and restrict colonization e.g. to our solar system.
So my answer to your question is - depends on what is most useful for Earth - and also what is most beneficial for exploring our solar system and finding out about things without interfering with the balance of things until we understand how they work. As I understand it, then the Moon seems best of the two, but there also most likely an exploration base rather than a colonization attempt - and to think of exploration, mining, tourism etc as the motivation for it, and focus on how we can help the Earth also - and take it from there, how it develops with those as the main motives.
Also, to keep peaceful exploration of space as our primary aim long into the future. That's something which has worked well for the last several decades, is something which all countries can agree on and makes it easy to collaborate in space without conflict except friendly rivalry - who can find the most interesting things most quickly - and has great potential, I think to benefit humanity also.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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